Wandering through the main
railway station in Guangzhou (Canton),
China, I came upon a group of Tibetans. It was a rather cold January
day and these men were dressed in their normal winter garb of furs
and leather. Not being able to speak Tibetan, I asked one of them in
Mandarin if they were from Tibet. He answered quickly in clear
Mandarin, shi -- yes! Before I could open my mouth for another
question, he ask where I was from. It was evident to anyone I was
not a local boy and I stood out in this Cantonese town about a much
as these fur-laden Tibetians.

I told him where I was from
and he came closer and asked a
question I had not expected: "Have you seen our Dalai Lama?" As I
tried to tell him I had only seen him on television, he continued
boldly to tell me, "We need him, we want him to come home." Such
words could easily have landed the poor fellow in a lot of hot water.
But he said it again and again as I looked around, hoping there were
not Security Police in the area. This was all he wanted to talk
about. His heart yearned for the only God he knew and he did not care
who heard him. Our conversation never veered off his desire to see
his Dalai Lama. He and his friends were a long way from home,
apparently seeking well-paying jobs they heard were available in
South China.

My desire to visit my train
station pilgrim's home increased.
But the times Tibet was open to foreigners never fit in with my
schedule. The mystique of Tibet, known as Xi Zang in Mandarin
Chinese, came to me as to most Westerners through reports by
explorers, journalists and adventurers. Men from many lands have
sought to travel and learn from this ancient land. The British wanted
Tibet to be a buffer between their India Colony and China. The
Russians wanted it to help them link up with their other Central
Asian neighbors.

Books like "Out of this World"
by Lowell Thomas, Jr.; "Seven Years
in Tibet" by Heinrich Harrer; "When Iron Gates Yield" and "Tibetan
Tales" by Geoffrey T. Bull, had long captivated me. A book of more
depth like "Tibet, Its History, Religion and People" by Thubten Jigme
Norbu and Colin Turnbull, continued to feed this desire to know more
about the "Forbidden City of the Lamas." I nearly worn out a copy of
The Lonely Planet travel survival guide by Michael Buckley
and Robert Strauss, planning but never making it to the roof of the world.